Flicker
by Lily-On-Water
Summary: Under the too-bright lights of the hospital everything seems to flicker. Life seems to pass by and memories suffocate you. Standing by her daughter's bedside, silently begging her eyes to flicker... even Erasers are better than that. Beside her Fang gasps
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I do not own Maximum Ride, very sad about that. **

His arm slips around her and instantly there is a collective intake of relief. Now that he is here she can take her eyes off of Evie, if only for a moment she can take her eyes off of her little girl whose own body is betraying her as she stands. Her little girl is wasting away in front of her and there's nothing for her to do about it; nobody's ass can be kicked hard enough to make up for this… she is helpless. For the first time in who knows when, she is completely, and utterly helpless. All she has done for the past hour, a whole hour, is look into that God-awful room and watch her baby sleep even as her body gets paler and her skin more waxy… her bones frailer. Her child is beginning to resemble a doll, no more, no less, and even at her best it is a doll that anyone else would regard as sickly… her beautiful little girl sickly? The words don't even belong in the same sentence… but yet she has been here before. She has stood in this exact-same spot in this exact-same hospital more times than she can count, but still tonight seems different. Tonight is different. The pain had struck too suddenly; she had been fine, at least she hadn't let on anything to contradict that; she had been fine one moment and the next lying on the floor clutching at her stomach while tears rolled down her cheeks.

"How is she?" His lips brush her forehead and she sighs. Tears are pricking at the corners of her eyes and she blinks them back, but it is a futile gesture; they are coming, whether she likes it or not they are coming. She lets them flow. His arms wrap around her and she allows herself to be pulled into him, allows her face to bury itself in his wiry shoulder. "That bad, huh?"

He sighs and she laughs; it is a hysterical sound that by no means could be thought of as joyful. She is hardly aware that she is nodding until he pulls her away and shoots her that look. Not that you're-crazy-how-can-you-be-laugh look, but a more subtle I-wish-that-I-had-it-in-me-to-laugh look. She forces herself to stop nodding and to look him in the eyes, to tell him the edited version of what the doctors had told her.

"Fang, it's spread." She can hardly hear the words herself but she knows that he can. She knows he can by the way he leans in farther, by the way his eyes flicker from her face to the window into their daughter's room. She's seen that look before; he's trying to focus his attention. He wants to know what she has to say but at the same time he couldn't care less. Right now his daughter is in the room directly across from them, and from their perch here he must be able to see her clearly. Must be able to see her deteriorating form clearly; of course, he's seen if before, but everything looks different in the light of the hospital. Nothing looks the same once you walk through those double doors; once you sign away your daughter's to a person that you more than likely have never before met. Finally his eyes flicker back to hers and she is able to see all the pain and concern in them… enough to fill oceans.

"I don't… you know I don't understand all their talk… I don't… I don't understand it at all." She breathes, or rather, tries to breathe; it won't quite work, the air won't quite come out right. She stifles it back and resolves to breathe through her nose for the time-being, "They just… they said that...Fang," She doesn't want to do this… she doesn't want to deliver to him this death sentence, but at the same time she's the only one who can. "Fang, they said she's… she's… she's not… she's not going to make it. It's… it's serious this time… she's… she's not strong enough."

Her shoulders are shaking so hard, like tiny volcanoes are erupting just below the surface of her pronounced blades… they are shaking so hard it is painful and she doesn't know quite what to make of it. Her sobs are silent, her tears gushing but no noise accompanying them… she has only ever cried like this once and that was when they found out about Evie's cancer three years ago. It had scared her then just as much as it scares her now, probably more so. Right now it doesn't bother her. Right now all that bothers her is the shell lying in the room across from her. Surely that can't be her daughter? Surely that can't be the same daughter as what her memories show her? It just can't be… the two don't match up.

Her Evie, the Evie of her memories was so vibrant… so full of life. Stay in bed all day? Take a sick day? Not even an option in her Evie's mind… even when she was little and her body had ached and pained and tears had ran a river down her cheeks she had still begged to be let out of the prison-cell that was her room. She had begged and pleaded till finally they had had no choice but to let her outside, to let her expand her wings and fly, even if only for a few minutes.

Her Evie would not have been able to lie in that hospital bed for this full hour and just sleep. Her Evie would have gotten out the bed, expanded her wings, and demanded access to the yard. She would have been flying before therapy was even fully over; at least in her mind she would have been… her baby would not have been, even in the least, content to lay there and sleep, not when she could be flying. Her Evie would always be able to fly, no matter what; she would be able to fly.

The estranged sob escapes and he wraps his arms around her; there is no warmth in them. The gesture is just that, a gesture, there is nothing in it… he can't put any more in it because his eyes aren't flickering anymore, the black and gold orbs are now focused solely on the door to their daughter's room. In a matter of minutes he will leave her. In a matter of minutes she will be alone again.

He doesn't leave her, though, he stays there, his arms wrapped grimly around her and his voice tense as he mutters, "How did this happen?"

"I don't know." She chokes on her own words but swallows it back, "I don't know… one minute she was fine, sitting in the corner playing with her dolls, and the next she's over on the floor crying and holding onto her stomach. She never said anything to me about it hurting… she just… she just sat there and kept playing…"

"Looks like she's starting to come out of it… see her eyes are blinking a little… I'm going to go on in there." His words are barely a whisper against her ear, his kiss a feather on her forehead, he wastes no time in advancing for the door and with a sigh she follows him. She doesn't want to go in there but what else can she do?

His daughter's eyes are open when he walks into the room but they are by no means alert or alive. Not the kind of alive you want to see when you visit your daughter in the cancer ward; not the kind of alive you want to see ever. He takes her hand but other than a little blink of her eyes she shows no signs of having recognized him… a string of curses run through his head but he won't dare utter them in front of her. For her he will paste on a smile that feels forced even to him, he will paste it on and it will be a good smile… it will be reassuring… for both of them.

She looks too pale, her eyes are too dark in contrast to her skin and it is almost startling. He's seen her like this before… he's seen her like this off and on for four years… that doesn't make it any easier. Nothing makes it any easier.

Max is behind him and he feels her put a hand on his shoulder before taking the girl's other hand; the gesture makes it too real. The gesture makes it much too real because he knows what he's looking at now… he's not looking at a get-well-soon scene, he's looking at a we'll-miss-you-so-much-goodbye scene. It scares him; his hands are trembling and it scares him.

"Daddy…" The voice is so weak, like if Evie had been flying and her words had carried back to him by the wind… but she hasn't been flying, she's been lying here in this bed dying. His little girl has been lying here waiting to die and he couldn't even make it here up until an hour ago? Something like bile rises in his throat but he swallows it down, forces himself to maintain that somewhat trembling smile.

"I'm here, Sweetie… Mommy's here too." He doesn't recognize his voice, his too, like Evie's, has been taken away by the wind; Max doesn't look happy. She doesn't look like she wants to be here and her eyes are shifting uncomfortably around the room. For a moment he feels a flash of irritation at her… this is her daughter and her daughter is obviously scared, the best she can do is look around the room?

"Yup, I'm here, too, Eves." Max smiles but the tears pooling down her face are landing on the crisp-starch of the bed sheet, her voice too has been carried away. He wants to reach over and comfort her but he doesn't dare let go of his daughter… if he does she might slip away… if he does she will slip away.

"Daddy… Mommy…" The little girl croaks trying to make her words unclog from her throat; he feels tears track his own cheeks at that, and he tries futilely to blink them back. They come anyway. "I love you…"

"We love you, too, Evie… we love you, too, so much." He can't even feel the shaking of his shoulder blades, can't even feel the tears running their course down his cheeks; he presses his lips to his daughter's forehead and sits back down to watch as the light leaves her eyes… as those magnificent orbs darken and darken until finally they are no longer orbs at all… a sob breaks from within him.

Ten minutes later his daughter is gone.

**A/N: I don't know how I feel about this and if you don't like it then I don't blame you because I'm not even sure if I like it. I've got another story kind of similar to it, but I wanted to mess with the ages and other stuff a bit and see what I got so I just wrote this. So, yeah, really not sure about this so if you do want to see it continued drop a review because I'll need some prodding. **


	2. Chapter 2

_It had been cold outside, that much he remembers; it had been the coldest day of the year and it had also been the first snow of the season; Evie's first snow ever. It had only been a light snow; nowhere near the blizzard they had gone through in Antarctica, but to see Eves' eyes he would have sworn it was something much greater; something magical. Like angels in a whirling snow globe they had flown, wings outstretched and Evie clutched as tightly to his chest as her blanket and puff-ball coat would allow. Max had opted to fly to the side; enjoy the snow in a globe all her own, at least she had joined them once they got to the hospital; she had even held Eves for a while._

_ They had talked to her about the transplant for a couple of weeks; prepared her with what little knowledge they had versus nightmare tendencies. Their goal had been to keep her from being frightened but somehow, no matter how hard they had tried, they had failed miserably. Somewhere along the line a spark had been lit, a girl had been scared; somewhere along the line that spark had turned into a flame; from there it just escalated into a full-blown fire… A fire that had singed their child, burned her until all of her attributes- her strength and her liveliness, her baby-fat and her rosiness- were nothing more than the contents of smoke- gone to the horizon. _

_ He did catch glimpses of her, though, the old Evie, but only sometimes; like flying through that glittering haze of snow for the first time. The old Evie had definitely shined through there; she might not have been able to spread her wings and fly as she would have liked to, but she had definitely made what must have been her first appearance in weeks. That had all changed when they reached the hospital; she had changed. _

_ The little girl, who just seconds ago, had been mesmerized to silence by the twinkling of her first snowflakes, had turned catatonic, or, rather, the opposite of catatonic. All it had taken was a few steps, maybe three feet and a smile from the receptionist; a needle lying on a nearby tray. That had been more than enough to send a shiver down all of their spines, his own included. Years spent living in a science lab had done nothing for his tolerance of needles; it had done even less for Max, whose face had turned pale enough that he thought she might vomit. They had each tried to pull it together, though, like robots they had both swallowed whatever lump had risen in their throat; they had each pasted on a smile, or at least something that ended up being a semblance of one. They had done nothing to soothe Evie; if anything it had only served to upset her more, their fake smiles._

_ "I don't wanna go, Daddy!" She had clung to him, her tiny fingers grasping wildly at the hood of his coat; the back of his neck; his hair; anything they could get ahold of. Tears had started to blossom, a fresh stream of them staining their way down her cheeks; evaporating into the fabric of his coat and side of his neck. He had held her like that for a moment, allowed her to continue her antics for a moment, had made her feel as though everything would be okay, but only for a moment; a moment was all they could afford. "Please don't make me go, Daddy! PLEASE! PLEASE! DADDY, PLEASE!" _

_ Her screams had ripped through him; had left his body shaking in the wake of their absence. Like bells they had rang in his ears, and indeed, beside him Max had also shook, had also raised a hand in her own silent effort to block the tears, or at least to hinder them in their path. His arm had snaked around, it had been an unconscious gesture, but a necessary one; she had collapsed into him, her head taking the same resting place as Evie's had. Her sigh ringing through him the same way Evie's cries had; she hadn't sighed until they found out about the cancer. She had hardly stopped sighing since. _

_ "I don't know how much longer I can do this, Fang." Her voice broke and not knowing what else to do he had planted a kiss on her forehead, pulled her tighter to him. He had not wanted to tell her the obvious; had not wanted to tell her that she would have to deal with it; that at least until Evie got better she would be stuck to this same role. That until Evie got better this would be their roles, that this hospital would serve as their theater until the end had played out. "If it keeps up like this… I just… I don't know." _

_ "We'll get through it, okay? Together we'll get through it." She had nodded, but the gesture had been empty; her expression vacant. He had squeezed her one more time before letting go; before taking her hand and pulling her to the window of Evie's room; before allowing her to view firsthand their child's struggles. Before watching her break down as the needle pierced through their daughter's skin. She had turned her head away at the last part, and he hadn't blamed her; hadn't said anything, had just held her there until it was done; until it was time to go and sit with her. _

_ "Why did you let them do that, Daddy?" She had been weak, her voice quiet enough that he had to bend down to hear it properly. Even her hand, when he reached for it, had been motionless, when he squeezed it her answering reply hardly more than a twitch. There was a stuffed bear lying beside her and he could have smacked himself; if they had been thinking they would have brought her a toy from home. She would have been more at ease if she had had one of her own animals to hold onto. _

_ "Daddy had to, Baby," He sighed, it was not a sigh of relief but rather one of defeat. If Max took notice she didn't say anything, just continued to stroke the little girl's hair back, not looking up once as she spoke. "If you want to get better you've got to do what the doctors say, and so do we."_

_ "It hurt… they said it wouldn't, but it did." She had whimpered and tears had welled in her eyes; the pain had been so prominent that he could not bear it; could not bear himself for allowing such pain in the first place, and could not bear himself because he knew he would do it again. He had known that no matter what happened, he would agree to it; to keep Evie alive he would have to. _

_ "I know, Eves," He squeezed her hand, once, gently, "But you have to be strong. I swear to you, if you stay strong, I'll make sure nothing happens to you, okay?" _

_ "Do you promise?" Her voice had hardly been more than a whisper, and it had broken his heart. It may have been stupid to make such a big promise to her; a promise that he might not be able to keep. He had known that it was stupid, but at the time it had been true. At the time he had believed that it was true. He had believed it was true and that was why he was able to say the words, without even a hint of doubt in his voice…_

_ "I promise." _

"I broke the promise…" His voice is so quiet, a choked whisper in a suddenly stifling room; barely more than a forgotten secret whispered into a merciless wind. She has to strain, lean forward a little bit, grab on is arm a little bit to steady herself, but she can still hear it. She can still feel the heartbreak which unravels through each word; the heartbreak which crushes through each word, stomping them until the sentence he continues to murmur is unrecognizable. Until the sobs are too great to contend with. "I… I… I broke… I broke it."

She nestles closer to him, keeping a hand balanced steadily on his arm; wanting to absorb some of the pain from him; wanting to lighten his if only for a minute; wanting to feel some of it herself. Tears trek down her cheeks but she doesn't pay them any mind, just pulls him closer, feels him lay his head on hers. "You couldn't have known… you couldn't have known."

She shook her head, tears falling into his shirt, her hand rubbing circles in his back as they pull a blanket of white over her; as the wheel her out of the room. "None of us could have known."

**A/N: Sorry about a long wait, but I'm pretty happy with this chapter, overall, I think it turned out okay. I had planned on doing more with the present… but this felt right, so, thanks to those who reviewed last chapter- this one is then dedicated to… **faxtothemax51799**, **JealousMindsThinkAlike**, and **HeAt-StRoKe** – Thank you all so much for your words of encouragement. **


	3. Chapter 3

_Their daughter had been in the dining room that evening, sitting at the table with a mess of baby dolls strewn out around her, in her hands she had gripped no fewer than three crayons. With precision in the last twenty minutes she had succeeded in shading not only Cinderella's gown, but also that of her evil stepsisters'. Under her breath she had been humming the theme from Beauty and the Beast, which she'd recently watched with one of her aunts. She hadn't known that her mother was one-foot in the doorway, tears bristling in her eyes as she watched her, absorbed her childlike innocence. She hadn't seen it when her father came up behind her mother, when he put an arm around her and planted a kiss upon her head as he murmured at her about how everything was going to be okay. When her father walks in and wraps her coat around her she squirms, the material is heavy and it is too warm for such a room. He gives her a kiss on the forehead, tells her that they are going somewhere. _

_ "Is Mommy gonna come, too?" He nods and she takes his hand when he offers it, from her place in the doorway her mother watches as the girl is swept up in her father's embrace, as a handful of crayon colors fall to the floor; as they grind under her husband's boot into the carpet. "Where are we gonna go, Daddy?"_

_ In a voice without much emotion he tells her they are going to visit the doctor's office. His hands tighten around her as he says it, her mother steps forward and tells her it's past time that she paid a visit to Dr. Sarah, that the woman will forget what she looks like if she doesn't check up on her every now and again. _

_ "Can Mona Lisa go to the doctor too?" Her father nods and her mother reaches for the doll, puts it in her hands, not smiling the way she normally does when she hears her daughter say the art name. Its dark hair splays red against the white of the coat, in an unsettling way it reminds her of blood. There are no more delays on the trip to the car; they reach the hospital in record time, her father ignoring several a stop sign to get there. No one comments on this. _

_ "I don't like this, Fang." Her mother whispers, filling out paperwork in a chair different than their previous in one way, but in another exactly the same. Twice they have been switched out from locations to seek specialists; according to all this should be their last unsure visit, by the end of the day they will let them know if their daughter has stomach cancer or not. Her voice breaks over a suppressed sob, the lady sitting across from them spares her a knowing glance. "I don't like this at all." _

_ "I know, baby." The arm around her shoulder tightens in a kind of half-squeeze, her head falls to his shoulder and he puts a kiss to her temple, using his shirt to wipe the tears from her face. They remain like this until the doctor walks out, tells them that he needs to talk to them in his office, won't they follow him please._

_ "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, look at my band-aide!" The little girl crows, proudly holding up her arm for inspection, pointing with real pride at a pink, Dora the Explorer bandage. "See, Mommy, there's Dora and Boots and Swiper! Diego's not on there, but that's okay, right, Mommy? Maybe I'll get him on my next band-aide!" _

_ "Maybe so, sweetheart." Her mother offers, drying her eyes with the back of one hand, grasping her daughter with the other. Once her eyes are dry she moves her hand to the leg of her husband, which leads the little girl to look up at her father, whose shoulders have been shaking since they left the private quarters of the doctor. The little brown-haired girl gasps, grabbing for her father's hand._

_ "Daddy, why are you crying? The owie only hurt for a little bit, it's all better now, I promise." He isn't able to respond, not outside of one deranged snort. Her mother gives his knee another squeeze and takes the girl onto her lap, smoothing her hair away from her forehead as she does so. _

_ "He loves you very much, Evie, and he had to watch you go in there alone, he had to worry about if you were scared and if they were hurting you and all kinds of other things that daddies especially worry about. That is why he's crying." Her mother's tears stain against her new shirt, in her right hand the doll wears a band-aide as well; the girl offers it up as a statement. _

_ "Daddy didn't have to worry about me, Mommy, Mona Lisa kept me company." _

And so she had, today they buried her with Mona Lisa.

**A/N: Well, I guess it's safe to say that you all thought you were never gonna see an updated version of this again, because I sure didn't. I don't know why but here recently it was just whirling around in my head, I'd sat down to write it a few times but tonight it just seemed to click. I think it was the best I could offer on this chapter, and I hope you didn't mind the large flashback too much. I do want to clear up how it goes from past to present to past, my idea is that Max is at first just reminiscing but then she is sucked in, by the end we see that she is back in the present. There is a method to my madness. Just wanted to clear that up, yes it was intentional. I really hope you enjoy it and I hope you review, I'm also really sorry for the long author's note, but it seemed kind of necessary. This is dedicated to **ValentineRose28** and ** **.**


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